To this point, I would like to note that people use this Board for differing reasons, some of which really have nothing to do with convincing the person we are talking to. For example, I wrote a number of posts to Gandrews/MSC (wordy posts, for which I was properly chided for ‘wall of texting’) regarding a single paragraph of his.
Did I do this with the expectation of changing minds?
No. I wrote those posts for the following reasons:
I write them for myself. I enjoy doing it. The issue is important to me.
I wrote them for the SDMB readers beyond Gandrews.
I wrote them for the random person who might find themselves here on a Saturday morning, doing some web crawl on the question “did white people invent everything”?
I wrote them because the post, ranty as it was, was a pretty good statement of current Right thinking and I wanted to address a section of it.
I wrote them because I’m writing a Substack article which touches on this and I wanted to work through some ideas.
Some come here to convince. I come here to write. Two different motives resulting in differing preferred outcomes.
I’m saying that I often appreciate when posters like you, Temporary_Name (and a handful of others), make the effort regardless of motive. It’s the lord’s work you’re doing.
Thank you for your service. I considered looking it up, and probably would have, we’re I on my laptop. Posting on my phone made me prefer to save myself the effort.
When did the definition of “wall of text” change? I can remember in recent years it meant a long post with one paragraph which is unarguably difficult to read and could have been easily corrected by the writer.
Now it means anything longer than the reader’s attention span as if that were the writer’s fault and not the reader’s.
The irony is not lost on me, and I particularly appreciate this paragraph
I do not consider it a waste of time to articulate my views, to try to explain my thoughts and feelings and reactions. It allows me to examine my own beliefs, consider the beliefs of others, and perhaps arrive at a synthesis addressing all of the views on a topic. Sometimes I become more committed to a certain view, sometimes I realize that I had made unfounded suppositions and try to correct errors, and sometimes I realize that I had not thought the whole matter through completely. I have been known to alter my views based solely upon stating them out loud.
which totally counters my criticisms of you, despite the fact that this particular poster turned out to be a troll. I feel stupid for not having thought of it first.
